India, a significant player in Afghanistan's reconstruction process, said Friday it would support an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned" peace process amid the US push for peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, to a query on India's stand on the US proposal for peace talks with the Taliban which Afghan President Hamid Karzai has strongly opposed, said India has "reservations" about the Taliban.
He said India hopes that anything that "points to the contrary" to the talks being Afghan-led and owned "would be removed from the process".
"We still don't know enough (about the US proposal for talks). Even Afghanistan hasn't given clear signals yet. We have had reservations about the Taliban all along, We want an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace initiative," said Khurshid.
"But, if we have no alternatives we should not obstruct what is happening. We hope and expect it will be an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led initiative; and anything that points to the contrary will be removed from the process, and I'm sure the US also has the same viewpoint," he added.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin, at a media briefing, said the "reconciliation process should not seek to create equivalence between an internationally recognised government of Afghanistan and insurgent groups, confer legitimacy to insurgent groups or convey the impression of two competing state authorities for Afghanistan, which could undermine the legitimate Afghan state, Afghan government and the political, social and economic progress witnessed in Afghanistan over the past decade..."
Karzai has voiced anger over the Taliban opening an office Tuesday in Doha, Qatar, and naming it "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" - like a de facto mission.
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He said his government would not join US peace talks with the Taliban "until the peace process is totally under Afghan control."
Negotiators from the US and the Taliban were to meet in Doha on Thursday for peace talks. However, following Karzai's anger, the talks have not yet been held.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who arrives in India on an official visit June 23-25, called up Karzai to assuage his anger.
Following US intervention, the Taliban have changed the name of the Doha office to "Political Office of the Taliban" and lowered the Taliban flag emblazoned with Koranic script.
Akbaruddin said: "Our position is clear. Government of India has always called for a broad-based Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled reconciliation process, within the framework of the Afghan Constitution and the internationally accepted red lines.
"Such a process would necessarily recognise the centrality of the government of Afghanistan in the process, and involve all sections of the Afghan society, as also the insurgent groups, including the Taliban, who wish to join the mainstream."
"India remains committed to supporting the government and the people of Afghanistan, in accordance with the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, and a reconciliation process that has the support of the government and the people of Afghanistan," he said.